BRAIN WORRY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 751, 23 July 1886, Page 24

BRAIN WORRY.

After all, heroism is not the effete principle which pessimists would have us believe. The silent toilers of the world, exhibit to the full, as much courago, endurance, and heroic gratitute, as any great conqueror by field or flood. If the conscientious strivings with a hard and uncompromising world seem commonplace beside the aehievments of warrior or statesman, they are only lesser in degree. The motive force of the heroic is duty, and it _is questionable whether the more dramatic action of this principle reflects greater credit upon a man than the silent, patient, and enduring,energy with which the more obscure citizen does. ‘Oh how full of briars is this working day world,’ says Shakespere, and surely he who works under conditions perhaps of dire dis ease, encounters hardships as keen and terrible as any of wreck or campaign. In these times all men who have to work must do it with all their might. It the hours of labor be shorter than in past time, the stress is harder, and the competition more severe. The easy steady work of old times is succeeded by the rush and strain of modern necessities. And of all species of labor, none so thoroughly e burns out ’ the candle of health as brain work. Ordinarily it involves, too, a higher and more conscientious sense of duty.' Brain workers don’t strike—they work on until they fall, anu are pressed under foot by the ever-increasing army of intellectual competition., . In the bloom of health, and the full force of nervous energy, the brain-worker laughs to scorn any limitation to his capacity. The more work he does, the better he likes it. Meanwhile, he is literally burning himself out. The phosphates and phosphoric acid which are eliminated from the system of the intellectual laborer are immensely in excess of the waste suffered by the artisan or laborer. A burning thought ’ is an expression of literal significance. Every thought, emotion, or mental excitement wastes so much brain matter ; and if the phosphorus loss is not returned by food, or food agents, exhaustion ensues, and disease sets in. We can imagine no more significant evidence ot this than is given by Mr J. Clouting, head master of Waterloo State School, near Sydney. He says that he has suffered from kidney troubles for ten years. During the early part of that time he tried several medical men of the highest reputation in New South Wales, but with no permanent benefit. He was told by one of the most eminent, whom he shall always remember for his unselfish advice, that no medicine then known could cure him, and that drugs would only in crease the evil. Thus advised, Mr Clouting abstained from the use of medicines, and wore a hydropathic bandage, and paid strict attention to diet, eating very little animal food, so as to lighten the labor of the kidneys. The disease, however, gradually increased, as evidenced by the fixed dull pain in the loins, a burden almost unendurable, until his attention was directed to Warner's safe cure. He hazarded the trial of a bottle, the effects of which were so satisfactory that he continued until he had taken nearly eight bottles. He now found himself free from the old too familiar pain, and every symptom indicating a speedy recovery. This is the testimony of a gentleman who suffered not only mentall from disease, but from the weariness of mental labor and anxieties while in agony. Unquestionably, the strain and stress of teaching contribute very largely to disorganization; of the physical and mental systems. The leading organs of secretion and excretion suffer under sympathetic action with the excited and irritated nervous system. It is here that this grand remedy asserts itself a 3 a recuperator of the disarranged machinery, and a gentle force under the operation by which it is set into harmonious movement.